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How about this - Don't Buy the Sun. [dontbuythesun.co.uk] Those blaggards over at Murdoch's should have been sued out of existence years ago. They have not apologized for hacking phones and they have not apologized for calumnies about Hillsborough. Past behavior is the best predictor of future acts. So basically, this: Don't visit the Sun's website. Don't buy the Sun. Don't watch any Murdoch owned channel.

The Sun is perhaps the last place to ask about possible censorship of the web as it's part of Murdoch's empire which includes paywalls in places such as the Times. Dierdre must be about a million years old now.

I think his point was that with censorship comes tighter and tighter copyright controls - meaning they can charge more for their "content". I put quotes around the content part because I suppose it is - but journalistic integrity (or integrity of any kind) is rarely practised by the Sun.

He meant the pictures. Using the old 1picture equals 1000+ words formula the topless girl alone has more "content" than most NYT articles. Not even counting the short bio next to the picture.
Also remember that content comes from contain, so even if it is full of sh*t, it still contains something. (Hint: it's brown)

It also features Dear Deidre defending the topless model on Page 3 of her own newspaper saying "the Editor of The Sun thinks it's okay" and "nine million people read it".

Well, gee, this internet thing is smalltime compared to those numbers. It's a pity cablemodems don't burn as well as books or newspapers, we could do with a good old fashioned bookburning, especially with those oil prices... Oh well...

As a kid I can remember the Sun running non topless pictures of their 15 year old models in the run up to their 16th Birthday when they could go topless! That must make Sun readers TERRORPEADOS!!! Or have they all forgotten things like that?

The only creepy thing is the relationship between the average American and naked skin. That's just ridiculous. You guys are just brainwashed victims of a disgusting old remnant of the dark ages called christianity.

By the way. Adolescents in this age range are clearly too old for Pedobear.

The fucking hypocrisy. The same newspaper that uses the third page as a beacon of nudity. Why do our MP's even want to hear what she has to say? Britain is screwed.

That's a good one! Why do your MP's even want to hear her? Probably because they are chosen by the same people that read the Sun. Those MP's probably even read the Sun themselves. We have the same going on here in the Netherlands with Geert Wilders and the PVV. It's populisme all over. They just shout out what will get them into the news, no matter if it contradicts whatever they shouted the day before. And the media? They love it! They make it frontpage news, even the "quality" newspapers.

I remember reading that one of the most common household combinations of newspapers was the Times and the Sun. Either way, MPs will definitely be paying attention to the Sun even if they don't read it themselves; it has a huge national influence sadly.

Actually not, the plan is to censor only those things that one segment of the population finds offensive, not everything that somebody finds offensive. Like with burning of books, its only one segment that gets some little bit of power and impresses their will on others. I am reminded of the movie "The Name of the Rose" (1986) with Sean Connery, a good example of that type of twisted thinking and the lengths some will go to to make others do or not do, or not see, or not read, things they think are bad. I

Sorry I'm confused. If you look at entertainment, and divorce rate, and the adult industry, they are billion if not trillions of dollars. The hypocrisy is the public face that people try to maintain. I contend that the money speaks for itself and only a few people are wanting to be the arbiters of information, they are vocal and use public shame and guilt to try and impress their standards. They are so off base as to be caricatures of old Puritan ethics that we in the world have been trying to shed for hun

My point was that a lot of people, individually, are "one issue" and all those "one issues" are different and that it's not going to stop at online porn if the current bunch of "one issue" people that we are discussing get their way.

There will be other "one issues" in the future. Different ones, but definitely some very loud people will rally around an issue that will have their panties in a bunch. Even as the rest of us can point and laugh as they buy MPs and Congresscritters.

Aren't parents responsible for raising their kids? Shouldn't the parent also be monitoring and preventing the kid from getting access to objectionable/adult oriented materials? Isn't it a failing on the parent's part if they do get access?

BTW, Mod parent insightful. Porn being considered as worse than violence has always made me think WTF. Yet there is violence aplenty on normal television while not so much porn.

I am fed up with the idiots who try to push their child rearing duty on me. It is NOT my problem that you decided to breed. It is NOT my duty to limit my freedom so you can replace the TV with the internet as your el-cheapo babysitter.

You want your internet "safe and sane"? Go out and buy a web filter, install it and.... oh, sorry, I forgot. Not only do you not know the first thing about this "internet thing", you neither want to deal with your kids nor waste time protecting them.

Let the government do that. What did we elect them for, anyway, if we still gotta deal with pesky bits like, say, raising children?

I'd listen more of the campaign against porn were coming from more professional psychiatrists - but the leaders seem to be a mixture of parents' organisations and religious groups. Not exactly people with any credibility on the matter.

Actually it is. At least the information I've gotten is from psycholigists that deal with the effects of pornography in adults. Question: if psychologists were to agree it has pernicious effect on children, would you agree that it should be controlled? Here are some related topics, published by the American Psychological Association. It would be great if they did one specifically on pornography, but even common sense would say that if these issues affect kids, so will pornography.http://www.apa.org/news/pre

but even common sense would say that if these issues affect kids, so will pornography.

All three articles are discussing sexualization in the media that girls are exposed to constantly. I know porn is a big thing on the Internet, and it's certainly possible to trip over it, but porn stars don't have billboards and dolls and half-hour cartoon commercials telling girls how cool they are and how it's good to be like them. You can't compare the two just because they both convey an incorrect interpretation of female sexuality.

That's the thing, though. Where's the real-world effects? A large portion of the population can look at porn and not be harmed at all. Cars can bring harm. That doesn't mean that cars need to be banned. Some people (in this case, kids) are imbeciles and will be 'harmed' (I'm hesitant to call it harm since it is really their own fault anyway) by something. Doesn't mean it should be banned or even censored (even for that group).

but even common sense would say that if these issues affect kids

What's the deal with this "common sense" meme, anyway? The fact that you label som

None of the links you provide deal with porn. They deal with "role models" (I use the term very, very loosely here) that are available for children, on TV, long before watershed, on billboards on their way to school, in tabloids and even teen magazines. What you point out as the negative influence to our children is not porn, it's advertising. Advertising a stereotype and image that objectify girls and teach them that they have to be "sexy".

Hans here: Dude, your freedom has limits. All freedoms do. It stops where others are damaged. You can buy and drink alcohol, children cant. You can buy a gun, children cant. You can engage another adult in sexual activity, but not a child. Because children are in development. If porn damages kids, and everything indicates that it does, then there should be limits/control on its availability. It is very serene, simple, straight forward and rather unemotional. And it has nothing to do with people breeding or

How the heck is it my duty to protect your kids? Care to show me any kind of indication in the legal textbooks as to why I am in any remote obligation to keep your kids from harm? I must not harm them actively, no doubt about that, but that's not specific to children, I must not do that to any person. For good reason. But where does it say I have to go out of my way to protect your children?

I have to protect mine. No questions here either. And I'd consider myself a very bad father if I gave my underage chil

Here, me. I have had access to porn since I was... 6, I think. My grandpa had a kiosk and it was trivial for an interested 6 year old to get his hands on the hardcore magazines he sold there.

My life's completely fucked up, I'm the CISO of a moderately important company with about 5000 employees and I spend my working hours hunting hackers, and I have a perverse passion for it. My sex life is all fucked up to, I like to... boy, that's hard for me... I like to snuggle. Ok, go ahead, make fun of my fetish.

As long as I'm not paying for it (don't see how that can be avoided...) I'm good with people censoring what ever they damn well please as long as they give me a big ass I don't give a flying... switch so I can make all that censoring not affect me.

The nudity isn't on the front page of the newspaper. It's "protected" from viewing by children by being on page 3, which means it is obscured by page 1. I expect any internet schemes to be equally technically effective and equally difficult to circumvent (i.e. as difficult as turning the page).

The nudity isn't on the front page of the newspaper. It's "protected" from viewing by children by being on page 3, which means it is obscured by page 1. I expect any internet schemes to be equally technically effective and equally difficult to circumvent (i.e. as difficult as turning the page).

I would say clicking on "Yes I am over 21" in the first screen many sites fits this level of access control rather well. It might actually be harder, as it requires reading skills and more hand eye coordination.

Don't take what these muppets say too seriously. The Sun and its ilk (the UK's so called "red tops") are read by people of a reading age of about 9 -- about the bottom quartile of the population. And the people who write for these papers aren't the brightest bunnies either.

The trouble with living in an open society, is that people of very low intelligence and moral character are also citizens, and are also entitled to exercise their freedom of speech. Brighter minds should (but often don't) discount what they say and think accordingly.

It's standard political procedure though: First the politicians decide what they want to do, then they write a report saying how important it is that they do it. The US government actually did exactly the same thing years back with the Meese Report into the subject of pornography. Of the nine people commissioned to write the report, six of them were anti-porngraphy activists - and the remaining three, after completion of the report, publicly denounced the report-writing process as a sham and said they were

Maybe if the newspapers had more topless women?But more serious, why should I pay money to buy news that was important yesterday, when I can go online and read about things that are happening right now for free.

It kills me when I see a copy of one of the many despicable U.S. tabloids at someones house and they dismiss the fact that they bought at as "just for fun", or that they "don't take it seriously", or whatever excuse they have. Supporting bad shit with your money is not a victimless crime. It's that mentality that led to Rupert Murdoch owning the fucking Wall Street Journal.

It kills me when I see a copy of one of the many despicable U.S. tabloids at someones house and they dismiss the fact that they bought at as "just for fun", or that they "don't take it seriously", or whatever excuse they have. Supporting bad shit with your money is not a victimless crime. It's that mentality that led to Rupert Murdoch owning the fucking Wall Street Journal.

Across the board, Murdoch's media properties have a right-wing slant and lack integrity; that's hardly news. What i found surprising, after reading a lot of Noam Chomsky's writings (super left wing and I agree with almost everything he says), is that the Wall Street Journal is incredibly accurate. In fact, the business press in general. Seriously...hear me out on this one...I'm not talking about the WSJ editorial page, which is just right-wing opinion (and sucks a lot), but the actual news content of the

I want that by default, my childrens cannot see violence on the media or on the internet.What's ? Not important at all ? Ah! Only the human sexuality is to be forbidden ? Ouch...It's a bit like some religions when controlled by extremists: sex pleasure is prohibited but you can massacre all the guy that don't think like you.

My post was a bit ironical, don't get it too seriously. But I fully agree with you.

The only TV (a PC with a USB receiver) we have is in the parent room and the kids don't have access to it. There uses limited internet access, and we try to educate them about what can be be inappropriate for them. But the fact is that it's became really a full task to avoid heavy artificial violence spread by the medias. And I don't speak about information about real events in the world, the problem is the artificial violenc

When I was little, I played all sorts of games that people considered violent at the time (as silly as that was). I also stumbled upon my dad's porn magazines when I was about 8. What am I now? A murderer? A rapist? No. I'm actually completely fine! And, apparently, despite the fact that more kids are playing violent video games than before, crimes committed by young people has gone down.

Why be afraid of fictional violence? Why be afraid of porn? Just make sure your kids understand the difference between fi

Because all of that shit is going to make my ISP want to charge me more money for the same services.

If I don't want my kids to see porn then I'll either a) sit behind them when they're using the computer, b) ban them from using it or c) install some shitty net nanny software and let them figure out how to crack it or how to bypass it.

Too late. The IWF has been filtering UK internet access for some years now. They claim they only filter out child porn but as they are operationally independant and not accountable to anyone it's impossible to be sure.

...and some smaller ISPs don't use it. Major ones do use it because of some "gentleman's agreement"- so screw them. I'm a happy customer of AAISP- they have usage limits which annoy me, but other than that service has been great so far. It looks like an ISP run by IT guys for IT guys.

If you are thinking about switching and want to check which ISPs are available in your area, check http://www.samknows.com/ [samknows.com] It doesn't have all ISPs though and the smaller ones aren't listed.

...and some smaller ISPs don't use it. Major ones do use it because of some "gentleman's agreement"- so screw them. I'm a happy customer of AAISP- they have usage limits which annoy me, but other than that service has been great so far. It looks like an ISP run by IT guys for IT guys.

I have a fantastic ISP in Aberdeen they're exactly like that - they're a bunch of network guys running a stable network with 99.9+% availability. If I get any problem it's brilliant getting a nice Scottish voice on the phone who isn't a clueless drone in a call centre.

They did filter wikipedia once, though. They only intended to filter one page, but their efforts screwed up wikipedia's access control. It shows that they can make mistakes - even if they only got caught that once because they filtered a high-profile site, it does raise the question of how many hundreds of lesser-known sites have been filtered needlessly? The IWF doesn't even inform the operators of sites it blocks, and the ISPs that actually impliment the block usually spoof a 404 message in order to hide

Really, I had a good laugh, then I noticed that the 1st had already passed and that this is supposed to be, like, for real.

First, page 3. 'nuff said.

Second, their generally, shall we say, shady reporting practice? I would call it "sensationalist", but I fear the outcry of sensationalist newspapers getting pissed of being lumped in the same category as the Sun.

As usual, it's all about money. This "censorship call" and "opt-out by default" is all about establishing porn as premium content. If this change occurs, soon after the ISPs will charge extra to opt-in.

what I was most surprised to come across in my investigation was the availability, with no age restriction and free on the internet, of pornography including group sex, anal sex, double penetration, apparently having sex with strangers, women in the middle of a group of men who were masturbating over their face.

The Sun is Rupert "Iraq/Afghanistan War" Murdoch's social/political engineering tool for ensuring that a sizeable chunk of the "not too educated", and likely school-dropout British Working Class votes "Right/Conservative" in elections, regardless of what Britain's Conservatives may actually be up to, politicially speaking, at that particular point in time. It is a cheap, cheap "Celebrity-Sports-WeirdNews" type "tabloid newspaper" that deliberately sensationalizes things like celebrity-scandals, dumbs everything newsworthy down intentionally, and only uses very simple English sentences and vocabulary, so even the most stupid person can understand it. A favorite trick of the Sun is using working-class slang words in a targeted way, with a supposed "wink-wink" to Blue Collar working class Brits who read it (The Sun always calls Scientists "Boffins" in articles about science for example, never actually "Scientists"). The Sun has been known to report completely made-up and untrue idiocy like "Windturbine hit by UFO" or "One of our readers has found Atlantis on Google Maps" on its front page. It regularly features voluptuous topless Page 3 "titty girls" picked from British hinterland stock, Mystic Meg (who looks into the Universe, to tell you what your Stars/Zodiac have in store for you today), and other assorted stupidities that target the undereducated and gullible. Oh, funny coincidence, the same Rupert Murdoch who publishes naked Page 3 "titty girls" in the Sun in Britain every day, also publishes hardcore-conservative Christian books in the U.S., under the publishing label "Zondervan". Who'd have thought something like that was possible? =) For those who don't know "the Sun" at all (do look it up on the web... its often unintenionally hilarious), it is roughly what would happen if you dumbed-down FoxNews U.S.'s news reporting by another factor-of-five, added strippers & pornstars, but also sports betting, astrologists, UFO/supernatural conspiracy crap, daily celebrity scandals, papparazzi pictures of famous nude people on beach holliday and such into the mix, and published this mix-o'-crap as a tabloid newspaper each day. Actually, come to think of it, the Sun has a toned-down sister-newspaper in the U.S.. Its the almost equally crappy New York DailyNews, which is kind of like "the Sun America", but without the Page 3 titty girls, Dear Deidre and Mystic Meg, and with a more American layout. The Sun is widely recognized as being one of the most dumbed-down reading experiences in news journalism anywhere in the World. But, very sadly, it also sells more copies a day (several million) than just about any other newspaper in the world.

I see it's been a while since you read a copy. Some of what you say is true, the rest is very dated.First, 90% of their stories are carried by all the other news agencies.

OK, I have the paper in front of me now. The first science story in on page 22 (in my regional version). The topic is "X-rays on a mobile". The last word on the first paragraph is "scientists", not boffins. A quote from one of the "boffins" is "The terahertz range is full of unlimited potential...". Something we've covered on Slashdot befo

Its not the internet the kids need protecting from its the predictor sun
grooming 15 year children and having countdown till in their 16 when they can take topless photos of them
The Sun and other British tabloids also provoked controversy by featuring girls as young as 16 as topless models, when it was legal to do so. Samantha Fox, Maria Whittaker, Debee Ashby, and others began their topless modelling careers in The Sun at the age of 16, while the Daily Sport was even known to count down the days until i

They have tits on page 3, within easy access to any child and they thing porn should be censored from the net? Oh yeah, I forgot 9 million people read the sun. That's obviously like 10 times the people that on the internet.